A Cold Hunt (Round 3)
scent of the day: Tobacco Rose, by Papillon
Eau de Protection soapy rose at first, but as if the oakmoss backing of that soap effect was something—and this is in part because of the assistance of the rose-stem greenness of the geranium bourbon and because of the body thickening effects of labdanum and peru balsam—as dense as the moss in Mousse Illuminee. The rose actually is way more dominant at first, so much that it could seem reducible to just another spa-bath-bomb scent were it not for an orange-liquor-like booze and mossy inkiness element that makes it so much more grand and distinct. A subtle bath-bomb character does always remain but it dials back under that boozy-inky rose character—a syrupy-sour quease sort of like Overture Man, but with more of texture and even aroma of deep red balsamic vinegar that (because of the labdanum and the peru balsam) has thickened a bit from sitting out. Plus we cannot ignore the waxiness here, which might in part be due to the beeswax.
When it settles down one could summarize this as a salty-sweet rose—an ambergris-beeswax rose—with animalic rose made a bit Gothic for all its brightness by an Encre-Noire like rooty vetiver and this mysterious orange-cherry liquor. I have a newer bottle and an older sample. There was no reformulation. I am sure of that. There is definitely some natural variation between the batches though. At at least 50 percent natural, that is to be expected. The biggest difference I am seeing now, but it could just have to do with my mood and the season and other factors on my side of the equation, is that this is very gothic. The Encre Noire connection sings in a way I did not notice before. That melancholic vibe makes the connection, at least soul connection, to Little Song even tighter than I had noticed with my previous sample. The rose seems less soapy, even at first, and subsumed in UK Atlantic ambergris and beeswax
The rose is presented from ground to inner petal. Bulgarian rose otto gives us honeyed-jammy depths of the inner petals, some secret fruitness you would need a speculum and some sort of insectile proboscus to get to. May rose gives us the dusty-spicy character (sort of the like the rose in Little Song) but with a white-grape acidity of the outer petals. An intense geranium bourbon gives us the impression of the stem, a stem twisted and worked enough to reveal a lemony minty character. Patchouli and oakmoss and hay give us the musty-earthy ground in which the rose is rooted.
The greenness is not to be underestimated. There is such greenness in here that you could suspect the galbanum of Dryad. Indeed, the moss-musk-balsma-trifecta brings out an ethereal green aroma like we get in Mriga, only Tobacco Rose is much more rosy whereas the Prin is more herbal and pine-foresty. Because of the honey-haylike tobacco here in Tobacco Rose, though, we get something closer to Tabac Tabou. There are crucial differences of course. Tobacco Rose has rose whereas Tabac Tabou has none. Indeed, as the soapy side recedes a bit the rose seems very complex and rich—one could say it approaches the depth even of Ensar’s Rugosa version of EO3. Tobacco Rose also goes mintier (because of carnation) and saltier (because of ambergris) whereas Tabac Tabou goes sweeter because not only does it have the honey side of Tobacco Rose but also a burnt-sugar-hay immortelle.
Tobacco Rose, as the vinegar evaporates and we are left only with the barky container it was in (oakmoss and hay) dries down very close to Salute! by Parfum d’Empire. Tobacco rose dries down to salute but with a bit of that lanolin glow of Goat—always still, and even more so with all the syrup dissipates, with that dusty rose of Little Song. Little Song is, indeed, the closest fragrance I own to this one. Its the dustiness that comes out and its the autumn feel in both: hay based in Tobacco Rose and liatrix based in Little SOng. Little song is dustier and spicier, and its vetiver—especially in the drydown—is way more present compared to tobacco rose. Little Song—less powerful but more masculine (esp because eof its vetiver-moss-tobacco synergy)—leans a great deal into the tobacco, using the actual note as opposed to what Liz Moores does here in Tobacco Rose: building a tobacco accord primary around ambergris, patchouli, and especially hay absolute—the hay here less a note to isolate (like in Chergui) and more like an omnipresence atmosphere that, once you notice it, you cannot unnotice. Tobacco Rose leans much more into the rose than Little Song—rose in plein air (yes hay field blowing in ambergris sea winds) and happy as opposed to cloistered and melancholy (yes, coffee and cigarettes readily available).
The Vetiver gets very leathery in Little Song. Leather is the key difference between the two frags. Tobacco Rose is much more graceful and haylike, as opposed to the rugged vetiver leather we get in Little Song. Tobacco Rose definitely shows itself to be the better fragrance than little song and one of the key factors in that is the animalic base that shows itself up. whereas little song has a vetiver kind of generic base tobacco Rose has a unique animalic base that almost gives the whole, in light of the greenness a kind of pond water or a dirty vase water feel
The rose quality here is crazy. It is wild that Ensar roses are a thousand where as this is one hundred. The math ain’t mathing as the kids say. Papillion is a tremendous house. Salome on some days could be my number one scent of all time, defeating all the artisanals even. Tobacco Rose is stunning for the price. It has a deep artisanal feel. Liz Moores is a true artist. She is not pimping out her art for money.
*Let's workshop this poem about a boy and his father on a cold morning hunt where clumsiness and pride, as well as a quiet love, play out against the chill of the stream and the weight of growing up.
A Cold Hunt
Dawn pink feeble in the ashen sky, my father— head to toe in hunter wool, tractor-rust red— wobbled a path for me over black-algae stones poking above the tinkle of the ice-shard stream. He turned around. “Just watch your step there.” Confident I needed no babying, I slipped right where his finger still pointed. “Fuckin Spikey!”
Shotgun submerged like nostrils, I showed him I had saved the coffee. I held it high, on my back spluttering “Didn’t spill!” Crouched at our tree (twelve gauge drying upside down, him blowing smiley steam from the mouth of the Styrofoam), I counted one blue number after blue in my fight to muffle the molar clacks. “Fuckin Spikey, huh?”
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
